Recent attacks on immigrants tell us who we are
By Yolanda Chávez Leyva, July 8, 2009
We need to speak out against the ugliness that is fueling anti-immigrant violence and taking lives.
The most recent example of how far some anti-immigrant people have gone is the home invasion-murder of Raul Flores and his 9-year old daughter, Brisenia, in Arizona on May 30.
Two of the three people charged with the murders have connections with an anti-immigrant group.
Shawna Forde actually founded the Minutemen American Defense (MAD) after being ousted by the more well-known Minutemen Civil Defense Corps. Her organization’s website issued a statement that said, “Shawna acted totally on her own personal agenda and has caused a lot of pain, embarrassment, and humiliation to the total Minuteman movement and fellow members of MAD.”
The continuing anti-immigrant rhetoric, fueled by politicians, vigilantes, and political pundits, has created an atmosphere where killing immigrants is acceptable.
Take, for example, the death of 25-year-old Luis Ramirez in Shenandoah, Pa., last July. Ramirez, an undocumented worker from Mexico and father of two, was brutally beaten by white teenagers, eventually dying from a kick to the head. At least one of the teenagers had used a racial epithet against Ramirez. Nevertheless, a jury refused to convict the teenagers of murder, bringing in a conviction only on the charge of simple assault.
Last year, another group of teenagers murdered Ecuadoran immigrant Marcelo Lucero in Patchogue, N.Y. The teens reportedly said that they were looking to “beat up some Mexicans.”
The Shawna Forde case you might be able to write off as the action of a crazed vigilante. But these teenagers?
Many of them are high school athletes, earn good grades and are popular. They don’t seem like monsters.
But their actions are monstrous, and they make me fear for the future of this nation.
What kind of nation are we that permits fear to rule?
What kind of nation are we that can treat other human beings as less than human, expendable and not worthy of justice?
What kind of nation are we that allows our youth to stalk and kill others for being “different"?
What kind of nation are we that turns away at the sight of the countless insults, injuries, racial epithets, and other daily inhumanities faced by immigrants in this country?
It’s time that we take the anti-immigrant rhetoric and its fear-mongering leaders for what they are — not protectors of this nation but destroyers.
It’s time we demand justice for the murdered and insist that our politicians make real, relevant changes to improve our lives.
It’s time we stop blaming immigrants for the ills of our economy and our nation and look instead at what big business and government are doing to create the problems that plague us.
It’s time we look in the mirror and decide who we want to be, and what we want America to be.
I hope we choose to be moral individuals and a caring nation, not cruel people of a callous country.
Yolanda Chávez Leyva is an historian specializing in Mexican-American and border histories. Her research is on children crossing the border at the turn of the 20th century. She can be reached at pmproj [at] progressive [dot] org.
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Comments
What makes this piece relevant is that it highlights the pernicious effects of inflammatory anti-immigrant rhetoric. Even if implicitly, the immigration debate does center around racial tensions to a great extent. The above individual who highlights the acts against the family celebrating America is accurate in presenting this as a hate crime, yet continues to propagate the "us vs. them" mentality. The larger question is one of solidarity. America is full of its different factions and social groups, and they are set to compete against one another due to our economic structure. And when inflammatory language is not rebuked, it only serves to embolden those who are outright racist. Paranoia fueled by this language permeates the immigration debate. Both sides try to paint an exclusive pictures squarely within the confines of their political persuasion. Lets be practical here. Lets stop talking about less prudent things such as paranoid delusions about the immigrant peril and what they're doing to us physically and culturally. Looking at the economics and humanity of the situation would be more practical. Americans do need to open up on this issues and treat immigrants both legal and illegal with dignity and respect deserving of a human being. However, we do reserve the right to dictate immigration levels and policy. But it is inaccurate to paint this as a class question unless this government also addresses who it oppresses it's own working class. It's a concept of divide and conquer, and Americans fail to see the common ground they hold with immigrants who try to come here for a better life. Lets face it America, racial bias permeates our culture. Face up to this fact and then maybe we can progress. And stop playing the "white victim" card. It's not a matter of color, it's a matter of atrocious acts being committed solely on the basis of race or ethnicity, no matter the race or ethnicity of the victim or assailant.